Miles O'Brien

Miles O’Brien is veteran, independent journalist who focuses on science, technology and aerospace.

He is the science correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, a producer and director for the PBS science documentary series NOVA, and a correspondent for the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE and the National Science Foundation Science Nation series.

For nearly seventeen of his thirty-two years in the news business, he worked for CNN as the science, environment and aerospace space correspondent and the anchor of various programs, including American Morning.

While at CNN, he secured a deal with NASA to become the first journalist to fly on the space shuttle. The project ended with the loss of Columbia and her crew in 2003 – a story he told to the world in a critically acclaimed sixteen-hour marathon of live coverage.

Prior to joining CNN, he worked as a reporter at television stations in Boston, Tampa, Albany, NY and St. Joseph, MO. He began his television career as a desk assistant at WRC-TV in Washington, DC.

O’Brien is an accomplished aviator and aircraft owner who often pilots his airplane to assignments, and is frequently called upon to explain the world of aviation to a mass audience.

He has won numerous awards over the years, including a half-dozen Emmys, and a Peabody and DuPont for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Born in Detroit and raised in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI, he is based in Washington, DC. He has a son at the US Naval Academy and a daughter at Davidson College in North Carolina. He was a history major at Georgetown University.

Miles's Most Recent Stories

Johnny Matheny, who lost his arm to cancer in 2008, is a pioneer of advanced arm prosthetics. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien profiles him as part of a larger series on the new technology powering robotic arms. Continue reading →

Improvements in body armor have kept more soldiers alive, but many veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan have come back with debilitating injuries. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien, whose left arm was amputated last year, tests out some of the future limbs now in development. Continue reading →

It’s been a year since science correspondent Miles O’Brien lost his left arm in an accident. Since then, he’s been learning how to live life “mono-mano.” But can technology ever replace what he lost? Continue reading →

The black box from AirAsia Flight 8501 provided some answers about what caused the crash, but also opened up questions about automation and why mistakes from past accidents haven’t been corrected. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien joins Gwen Ifill to discuss eerie similarities between AirAsia’s flight and past crashes and why the still-missing Malaysia Airlines flight was declared an accident. Continue reading →

NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay travels the most remote parts of Earth to understand how life might survive on other planets. But he’s also investigating another potential life form in space: humans. Can humans become a multi-planet species, he asks. Can … Continue reading →